Photometric Objects Around Cosmic Webs (PAC) Delineated in a Spectroscopic Survey. III. Accurate Measurement of Galaxy Stellar Mass Function with the Aid of Cosmological Redshift Surveys

Abstract

In the first paper of this series, we provide a method, Photometric objects Around Cosmic webs (PAC), that can make full use of the large-area photometric and cosmological spectroscopic surveys. With PAC we can measure the excess surface density $\bar{n}_2w_{\rm{p}}$ of the photometric objects with certain physical properties, such as stellar mass, around the spectroscopic objects. Combining with $w_{\rm{p}}$ measured from cosmological surveys, we can determine $\bar{n}_2$, the galaxy stellar mass function (GSMF), which is completely model independent. We measure the GSMFs in the redshift ranges of $z_s<0.2$, $0.2<z_s<0.4$ and $0.5<z_s<0.7$ down to the stellar mass $M_*=10^{8.2}$, $10^{10.6}$ and $10^{10.6}M_{\odot}$, using the data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys and the spectroscopic samples of Slogan Digital Sky Survey (i.e. Main, LOWZ and CMASS samples). Our results show that there is no evolution of GSMF from $z_s=0.6$ to $z_s=0.1 $ for $M_*>10^{10.6} M_{\odot}$, and that there is a clear up-turn at $M_*\approx 10^{9.5} M_{\odot}$ towards smaller galaxies in the local GMSF at $z_s=0.1$. We provide an accurate double Schechter fit to the local GSMF for the entire range of $M_*$ and a table of our measurements at the three redshifts. Our method can achieve an accurate measurement of GSMF to the stellar mass limit where the spectroscopic sample is already highly incomplete (e.g. $\sim 10^{-3}$) for its target selection.